2nd YEAR studio I

Bat Observatory

Observatory overlooking a bat colony under one of the bridges in Houston’s Herman Park.

Awarded the 2019 Sundin Scholarship - Funded by the Sundin family through the University of Houston College of Architecture

This project was a design proposal for an observatory overlooking a bat colony under one of the bridges in Houston’s Herman Park. Due to the qualities of the site and its respective limitations, my take on the bat observatory leaned towards a more organic solution since a very early stage of development. I chose the circular display to maximize my opportunities when framing views and to more lightly place the building on the site by creating a relationship with the trees that surround it. Later on, I started to imagine that inhabiting this space should feel like inhabiting a tree canopy, or a converging cluster of them, so I separated the core and the secondary programs into their own individual “trunks” and waffled the structure to scatter light more like a tree canopy would. This way the building transcended its primary function and became its own micro environment.

Check project process flipbook ↓

conceptual design

Boards

conceptual design

Plans

conceptual design

Site Analysis Diagram

Take a look at the flipbook

project information

Project Name: Bat Observatory

Project Location: Herman Park – Houston – TX

Professor: Sheryl Chapman

Project Type: Academic/Individual